Articles written by Jeff Carpenter

I've been a Lightroom user since the beginning of my career and honestly, I love it. It fits seamlessly into my workflow, and I couldn't imagine using any other raw processor. That is of course until I downloaded a trial of Capture One 11. I've heard people talk about Capture One, but I never thought much of it. After all, what's wrong with Lightroom?

Flash duration is one of those terms you hear in the world of flash photography but may not know exactly what it is, or why it matters. It’s really quite simple, and pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The measurement of time from when the flash begins to fire until it’s completely off is what’s known as flash duration. Like a light bulb filament slowly burning off when it’s turned off, a flash tube does the same thing, but much quicker.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: “Why am I a photographer?” In recent months, I feel like I've completely lost touch with why I became a photographer. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do, but sometimes I forget why. When I was first starting out as a photographer and all of my shoots were “just for fun,” it was easy to see why I enjoyed it. After all, there were no consequences if I screwed something up, and I looked at photography as more of an escape from reality than a job.

As photographers, we may not always think about taking pictures of ourselves, but having a current headshot is extremely important. Think of it as your own personal little billboard that allows people to see your ability as a photographer. After all, if you don't have a good picture of yourself on your website, what would make anybody believe that you can take quality pictures of anyone else?

There are plenty of reasons you may want to blend natural light with flash. I know I rarely shoot with more than one strobe on location so the ambient light often acts as a fill light or rim light. Regardless of your reason to do so, knowing how to easily achieve this is extremely important. Check out this video where I explain my process for balancing strobes with natural light on location.

Bokeh, it’s something that we all love, whether we like to admit it or not. It seems like every other client I work with asks me to "make the background blurry" or tells me "I want everything behind me to be out of focus." The obvious solution would be to shoot wide open, but the truth is, having your aperture wide open can actually have a negative impact on the quality of your image.

In reality, this shouldn't even be a comparison. We all know what the outcome is going to be, yet we still love to see the results. That or we secretly hope that the phone in our pocket can really keep up with a Hollywood workhorse that is used to film some of the most popular movies and television shows that are being released.

Having options is always a good thing, especially when it can save you from a costly mistake. In this quick tutorial, Jay P. Morgan from The Slanted Lens shows us the importance of shooting background plates to give yourself options in post production and help speed up your workflow.

There’s nothing worse than wrapping up a shoot that you’re really proud of only to have your client tell you that they’re not happy with the final images. If this happens, you really only have two options: either take the time to re-shoot or provide a refund. Either way, there’s about a zero percent chance that you will get a referral from them. By simply sharing your images with your clients on set, you can make sure that everyone is on the same page and you can begin the editing process with peace of mind and confidence that your client is going to be thrilled with your final product.

Last week, I posted an article about how to create amazing portraits with on-camera flash. My hope was to help anyone who was on the fence about shooting with flash feel more comfortable and confident in their ability to shoot with flash. Granted, shooting with on-camera flash has its caveats, so in this article, I am going to go over some of the benefits of shooting with off-camera flash.

Shooting with flash can seem daunting at times, but it also opens up a whole new world of possibilities to take some truly epic photos that just wouldn't be possible with natural light. As a minor control freak, I was drawn to shooting with flash pretty early on in my career because I wanted to have control of the elements that made up my image. I didn't like the idea having to rely on what the sun was doing to determine whether or not I would be able to create the image that I envisioned. I wanted control so I took it. If you’re on the fence about whether or not you should start shooting with flash, this tutorial is for you.

Implementing gels into your photography is a really simple and effective way to make sure your images really stand out from the rest of the crowd. There are a ton of different ways to use gels to create some absolutely stunning imagery, but in this post I am just going to show you a few ways that you can use them to add color to your background to produce really dynamic portraits.

I call it the 3-in-1 Headshot Method. As a professional photographer it is imperative that you are able to adapt to your surrounds and the needs of your clients. I run into a situation quite a bit where my client doesn't know exactly what they want out of their headshot session so it’s my job to give them multiple options. In many cases my clients are very busy and they may only have a few minutes to get the shots they need so that doesn't give me the time to tear down my set and build a whole new one just for one look. Anytime I find myself in a situation like that I try to use my 3-in-1 headshot method which allows me to shoot three very different looks with just two lights and one grey background. Check out this video where I go through my process step by step.

Sometimes when I'm shooting in a studio setting I find myself using strobes even when the shot doesn't lend itself to being lit with artificial light. After all, I'm inside and it just seems natural to use flash. That is of course until I stumbled across this behind the scenes video of Calgary based photographer Nathan Elson explaining some of his techniques for using both natural light and strobes in a studio setting.

I think it’s safe to say that we are all photographers because we love photography. I know I do, and I am so thankful that I am able to wake up every day and make money doing something that I love. However, like any other job, you’re going to run into an occasional gig that might not be right up your alley. That is a daily struggle for me and that is why I make a point to separate my business photography from my passion projects. The tricky part is where to draw the line.

We all know that being a photographer can get expensive, from camera bodies to lenses, there is a never ending list of gadgets and goodies that we can spend our hard earned money on. The last thing anybody wants to do is spend their money on the “must haves” of photography when we could just as easily drop some cash on the things we want. Below is a short list of gear that every photographer should have in their arsenal, but probably doesn't want to spend his or her money on.

Have you ever captured a really amazing picture of a car or motorcycle only to realize that you forgot to turn the headlights on while you were on location? Don't you worry about a thing because Photoshop makes it a breeze to flip on those high beams in just a few easy steps.

Earlier this week Sony announced that they will be debuting the world's fastest SD cards with amazing read and write speeds of 300 MB/s and 299 MB/s, respectively. Not only do the new SF-G series cards claim to be the fastest currently on the market, they are also backed by Sony’s File Rescue software which is a simple data recovery software that you can use free of charge.

Well, technically it's economics but let’s be honest, proclaiming to the world “It’s Economics!” just doesn't pack quite as big of a punch. You probably haven’t heard that competition is good for business since (if I had to guess) your high school economics class, but most of us probably weren’t paying attention anyway. No offense Mr. Holt… The whole idea that competition increases your business is a super backward concept but when you break it down, it actually makes a lot of sense. As a photographer, I am going to explain this as it pertains to the photography, but the whole idea works for any industry out there.

My name is Jeff Carpenter and I am a portrait and lifestyle photographer based out of Nashville, Tennessee. With a formal education in audio production I quickly realized that I had a much stronger Passion for creating visual content than I ever did working with audio. I officially made the switch to photography full time in 2010 while still maintaining many of my contacts within the music industry. Although I work a lot with people outside of music, having an upbringing in the industry has provided me with a lot of exciting opportunities as a photographer. There's always something new around the corner and I can't wait to find out what it is!